


Chemistry of Combustion

by LotusRox



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Child Abandonment, F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Julie Danziger - freeform, M/M, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-17
Updated: 2015-01-17
Packaged: 2018-03-07 22:09:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3185000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LotusRox/pseuds/LotusRox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Leave it to me to surround myself with smokers,” Hal used to joke, and Dave wouldn't get how deeply layered it went until sometime after the Big Shell had sunk to the bottom of the Lower New York Bay.</p><p>----</p><p>A character study of Otacon and memories of comfort, sickness and love brought by his sense of smell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chemistry of Combustion

**Author's Note:**

> _For my best friend:_ I'm super sorry for gifting you an overly sad fic. The suffering of Hal Emmerich is too compelling.

One of Hal's earliest memories begins with waking up in an empty, empty house with the sterling ringing of the home line, bouncing off the walls as minutes went by with nobody picking up the call.

He remembers not feeling scared by this. Him being alone in the house was not such an infrequent occurrence. He couldn't remember ever having a mother, and papa always said he _worked hard, long hours to meet every need Hal could have._

He remembers picking up the call, and the gruff voice of his grandfather sounding all tense and urgent. "Is that you, boychik?" and then immediately, "Where is your father?"

Hal didn't know the answer, so he didn't say anything. Großpapa got disappointed when he gave wrong answers, and he didn't like that. He much preferred it when the older man, with a softer, patient voice, guided him towards the right one. This wouldn't be different.

"Hal," his grandfather said, miles away in Santa Fe, and yet he felt the shakiness in him all the same, like a bad omen reaching through the line. "Your father isn't there, is he? Stay inside the house. I'll take the next flight and get to you as soon as I can."

"Großpapa? Where is papa?"

"He had to go on a trip."

It'd be a whole year until Hal saw his father again, forever changed, though he hadn't known at the time. He had been sure, back then, that they'd be together soon. But he missed him already.

Hal climbed into his dad's bed, like he did when he had a bad dream, and breathed in the smell of nicotine still clinging to the covers. It was comforting.

It smelled like him.

 

* * *

 

Julie wore a heavily floral perfume and yet all Hal could taste whenever she kissed him was cold menthol and warm tobacco; the same conflicting, set-your-nerves-on-edge feeling Hal got from the knowledge he had provoked her into this. Him and his clingyness, him and his needyness. 

He had wanted a mother and gotten a lover instead. Devoid of touch for so long, only burnt-out memories of a time when his father had been affectionate remained, the mixed signals had to be his fault.

Yet, Hal had clung to her. He was barely sixteen, fifteen when they had started, and this had to be love, Hal thought. How could it not be? Love trumped over age and conquered the guilt that made him retch when he was alone and thought of the day his father would came back.

Julie was beautiful and caring. Julie was worldly, and strong, and had a mind sharp as needles. Such an amazing, brilliant English professor stuck in Babylon, NY, as a stay-at-home wife for a husband that never, ever came home.

She paid attention to him, and held him. She ruffled his hair and always said how wonderful was Hal to her, _such an amazing man, look how good you made me feel_.

She always lit up another cigarette in the aftermath, still in bed.

Still shaking from cold shivers and the warm tingling of his orgasm, Hal had learnt to smoke from her.

He quit cold turkey of every addiction he had taken up the day his father's lungs overdosed in water and chlorine.

 

* * *

 

"Leave it to me to surround myself with smokers,” Hal used to joke, and Dave wouldn't get how deeply layered it went until sometime after the Big Shell had sunk to the bottom of Lower New York Bay.

They had slept together before, though neither of them knew which of the two was the worst enabler to deny it after adrenaline or alcohol had ran its course through them and the morning afters brought back the status quo. But once they started _being a thing_ , serious and for real, after E.E.'s death and Hal more complete confession of how exactly both his father and Julie had fucked him up, Dave swore to quit altogether.

He had managed to, and for a while, they got to breathe. Life in Philanthropy was anything but easy, yet they had each other. 

It was warmth itself, and Hal got used to the smell of David's skin after a shower, or waking up together, or the heady musk in the air after they fucked. Time between missions became cherished, instead of making both of them antsy with inactivity or guilt. 

And they dared to speak of love.

Sunny found her way to them, and they dared to speak of family.

Almost four years went by like that, swift like clean northern winds, before Dave's accelerated ageing put both of them back in the chokehold.

They couldn't keep it together. David pushed Hal away, and Hal didn't fight it. Solid Snake turning to the creature comforts he still could enjoy to cope and Otacon swearing to himself he didn't mind just being friends again, that it was for the best and that the knotted feeling stuck to his throat was just the smoke.

Sunny and the mission drove them both to give them their best, and only the former did anything to keep life inside the NOMAD somewhat liveable.

Sometimes, watching clouds of dust and soot arising from the rubble through the eyes of the MKII, Hal would feel his throat sore and tight with no other prompting than anxiety bringing back mixed memories of comfort and sickness and love at the sight.

He got to taste warm, bitter tobacco once again at the end of their mission, in a goodbye kiss that didn't break him because of how overdue it was, before Old Snake left him for Arlington.

And tasted it once again when he found _Dave_ and threw himself to his arms, angry and shaking and relieved like only people in love can, when they expect a corpse to be retrieved and find instead their other half.

Dave left his pack behind and didn't buy another. Yet, while Hal could breathe better than he had in years, the knot tight like a noose around his neck didn't leave entirely.

They made it count. They sold the airplane and bought a small, comfortable house somewhere that wasn't New York. Hal and Dave laughed and fought and fucked and cared for each other, and for their brilliant little sun. They got married in a small, quiet ceremony, and their daughter brought the rings to them, proud and smiling.

It was almost perfect. And Hal and Dave, they knew it wouldn't last, but they agreed that if David was going out with a whimper, the three of them would get to have one hell of a blast all the way there.

Hal had been in the middle of writing the memoirs he had promised when Dave was taken from him.

 

* * *

The next days, Hal lived them in a haze.

Meryl took care of Sunny after the cremation service while Hal flew up north to Twin Lakes, Alaska, to scatter the ashes in a bay near the woods one Solid Snake, prey to despair, had built his cabin in.

The house had been there, standing despite the damage from the elements on its outside. Still shut tight by the same metal padlocks they had bought when they left it to start Philanthropy.

He broke them one by one and stepped inside to find it intact, almost like it had been waiting for them. They had always meant to come back and everything was in the same place they had left it, ashes in the fireplace and all, and Hal's favorite couch covered with a sheet that was half-eaten by moths. 

Over the fireplace, a half-opened, forgotten pack of Lucky Strikes and a lighter inside. Around him, dust and the dim light of autumn, and the cold Hal knew would never leave again the other side of his bed.

Feeling numb inside and out, he didn't think anything special of it when he lighted up the first cigarette he had smoked in more than twenty years. He didn't even mind the staleness in them - It only felt comforting.

It smelled like him.

Hal took the pack with him before abandoning the cabin, leaving the door and windows open.

[](http://statcounter.com/)

**Author's Note:**

> I beg to you, please ask me about my headcanons for the Emmerich family.
> 
> The most sincere thanks to @Faerieswing, who is an amazing beta-reader, and an ever more amazing author! Please go look at her profile/works here <3


End file.
